Aaron Ramsey has been telling FourFourTwo all about the incredible ride that Wales had at Euro 2016 and how this time around, they want to go even further.
The Juventus midfielder was a key member of the side that reached the semi-finals of the tournament five years ago, where the Dragons were knocked out by Ramsey's now-clubmate Cristiano Ronaldo and his Portugal side.
Now, speaking in an exclusive interview with the Euro 2020 preview issue of FourFourTwo, Ramsey says he is confident that despite a markedly different set of players representing the nation this time, the Welsh can still impress on the big stage.
“Every game we were winning, we were just thinking, ‘What are we actually doing? We’re Wales – we’re not supposed to be doing this!’” Ramsey said. “But we were just going further and further. Going back to the hotel, they thought we were only staying for the first 10 days, then we’d be off! We ended up only missing five days of the tournament.”
“After every game, the boys had a few beers and celebrated – we were just enjoying every minute because we’d never experienced anything like that before, and were taking it all in.”
The most memorable game for Wales came in the quarter-finals when the side turned over a much-fancied Belgium team after going one goal down.
“They started like a house on fire. For the first five minutes, they could have scored a couple: we were making last-ditch tackles, clearing off the line,” Ramsey recalls. “Then one of their shots flew in from 30 yards – you were thinking, ‘This may be a long night’.”
“But something happened in that moment – it was as if we were free to go and express ourselves. I don’t know... there was no pressure then. We outplayed Belgium for long periods and they ran out of ideas. We thoroughly deserved it in the end. I felt like their goal helped us, in a way, to just relax and have a go.”
In a way, Wales have a similar lack of pressure this time around, given that this is such a young team. So does Ramsey think that the side can get to semis again?
“The final this time!” he jokes. "No, we’ve got a completely different team now, a young team, but who knows what can happen? We’ve proven that when we’re together, we can give anyone a game. We want to get out the group and see how far we can go.”
“Wales got to the semi-finals last time and nobody would have imagined that. As long as you’re on the same page and heading in the same direction, stranger things have happened.”
Read the full interview with Aaron Ramsey in the new issue of FourFourTwo, out now
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